The Author’s Bookshelf: David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace was one of America's most admired novelists. His 1996 masterpiece, the 1079 page Infinite Jest, has become a standard book for understanding our times. His journalism, much of it funny, is a great place to start in on reading him. Try, for instance, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. He was born in Ithaca NY, grew up in Urbana IL, taught in Bloomington-Normal and died at age 46 in Claremont, CA, where he taught at Pomona College. He is much missed.

The books on David Foster Wallace's bookshelf were selected by D.T. Max. After years of thorough research on David Foster Wallace, D.T. Max is considered a preeminent authority on the novelist's history and life.

D.T. Max, is a staff writer at the New Yorker. He has written about everything from the young chess champion Magnus Carlsen to the outrageous Bach performances of Helene Grimaud. He first wrote about Wallace in March 2009 in a long, much-admired piece for the magazine. The article served as the basis for Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: a Life of David Foster Wallace. Max's earlier book The Family That Couldn't Sleep was about insomnia and prions. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife, two children and a dog who came to them also named Max.

Books by D.T Max can be found here and books on his shelf can be found here.